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GONG SHOW! Did you read the one about…

Fri, 09/30/2016 - 5:54pm

By

Rhonda Annesley, Editor-in-Chief

rhonda@samoanews.com

The buzz in the community is from Facebook postings — some by people who don’t use the name they were given by their mommy or daddy, others by people willing to get out there and stand by their words, others just gossip mongers…

The thing is: People are beginning to think these FB postings are purveyors of "Truth” (with a capital “T”) — they’re not — they’re postings that are personal opinions, period. And everyone has one… an opinion that is… GONG!

And Samoa News does not block anyone on our social sites from having an opinion, just from being le mafaufau and slanderous.

It’s ironic when you think of who we are: We are a part of a culture that has taken words and fine-tuned their use to a point we have given cultural status to men (usually) who are able (some anyway) to speak to the heart of matters, while keeping the peace within the clan through consensus, even if it’s laying the matter to rest for discussion for another day to give everyone time to cool down — orators or ‘talking chiefs’ or tulafale. Given there are boundaries being crossed now – tulafale are not supposed to be senators — still…

FB has obviously brought out the ‘orator’ in all of us, I guess — GONG!

So… have you read the one about…

Racism against people from Samoa — pointing to a comment by a Lolo supporter that in a recent youth march of a gubernatorial team, there seems to be a lot of “Malo-pipo's” in there.

The comment has set off a fire of words from many — calling for the termination of the author of the post from their ASG job, and labeling the words as ‘racist’ and calling for Gov. Lolo to apologize to the people of Samoa. “Equal Opportunity” is thrown in there too for good measure.

Umm… the sentiments: “Samoa mo Samoa … Senators calling for Asian businesses to be audited specifically, the LBJ officials calling for doctors of American Samoan descent to replace foreigners… the Asian farmers have to go through a Samoan to sell their produce to the School Lunch Program… the list goes on… Why don’t we all apologize! GONG!

The point is that despite our ‘church on every corner’ mentality, we are not very nice when it comes to ‘other’ people. We call black skinned people- “black things”, Tongans- “horse eaters”, Asians- "cockroaches" and so on.

Is it so surprising then that we poison ourselves, and each other, at the drop of a hat — for right or wrong — GONG!

Then there is Hawaiian Air.

They have stopped you from pre-selecting your seat anymore if you’re traveling to and from Pago. Apparently, due to ‘fuel discrepancies’ they checked on the weight of each passenger & carry-on bag(s).

Guess what they’ve found — the weight of passengers on our Pago route has increased so much they now need to ‘redistribute’ your weight, for each flight, throughout the plane, for safety reasons… or to save fuel?

In the near future are we going to see the airline charge us Samoans and residents for how much over each of us are from the weight “you should be” for your age, sex, and height… or your…BMI? And call it ‘fuel economy’ … GONG!

Have a good weekend people … just remember to register to vote!

And to the samoanews.com comment about 100s of people from Samoa being registered to vote — two responses come to mind: 1) 100s of people born in American Samoa live in Samoa, and 2) this is not a new allegation — it’s been coming up every election, especially when the gubernatorial race is happening.

The key is to make sure they are not voting in Samoa, or elsewhere — only here, as they have to be residents and American Samoan or U.S. citizens. I believe the previous chief election officer did this with Samoa — or at least he said he did.